Libya’s rebel forces yesterday said a Nato strike killed Muammar Gaddafi’s youngest son Khamis and 31 others, a claim sharply denied by the authorities in Tripoli.
A rebel spokesman said Nato had hit a military operations centre overnight in the western town of Zliten killing 32, including Khamis, a feared military commander.
“Overnight there was an aircraft attack by Nato on the Gaddafi operations room in Zliten and there are around 32 Gaddafi troops killed. One of them is Khamis,” Mohammed Zawawi said.
Mr Zawawi cited as sources spies with Colonel Gaddafi’s ranks and intercepted radio chatter.
But a spokesman for the Gaddafi regime said the claim was untrue.
“Basically the news about the killing of Khamis by a Nato air strike are very dirty lies to cover the murder of civilians in the peaceful city,” said Mussa Ibrahim.
There was no independent verification of Khamis’s death, which has been rumoured a number of times during Libya’s five month-long civil war.
From the Naples headquarters of Nato’s Libya operations an official confirmed the alliance’s warplanes had hit at least two targets in Zliten overnight, but made no comment about the reports of Khamis’s death.
“We are aware of the news reports,” the official said.
“Nato struck an ammunition storage at around 8:15 p.m. (1815 GMT) in Zliten and a military police facility within a combat area at around 10.45 p.m. in the area of Zliten yesterday,” he added.
If confirmed, Khamis’s death would be a huge blow to both the regime’s military and the morale of Col Gaddafi’s inner circle.
The 28-year-old Khamis trained at a Russian military academy and commands the eponymous and much-feared Khamis Brigade – one of the Libyan regime’s toughest fighting units.
The brigade took part in the assault on the rebel enclave of Misurata, which has been bombarded from three sides and has seen some of the fiercest fighting of Libya’s civil war.
Meanwhile, state television reported that Nato warplanes struck Tripoli early yesterday, as the regime accused rebels of sabotaging a key pipeline feeding the country’s sole functioning refinery.
About 10 loud explosions rocked the capital around 1.30 a.m. (2330 GMT), an AFP journalist said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim said food and medicine supplies were spoiling in the capital due to long power cuts. Tripoli residents complained on Thursday of extensive blackouts and an acute shortage of gas canisters.